computer drone

I could be flippant and say, “because” or I could respond in the manner in which I usually responded to my children, “because I have the keys.” This short response will not do justice to this question… this question could (should?) be the focus of an entire semester’s worth of learning.

How have the trappings of education (grades, syllabi, rubrics, etc. become confused with education?

This could easily be someone’s doctoral dissertation topic, and I hope that someday, it does achieve that status and lend impetus to “the DE education reform movement.” For the moment, because I just have to get at least something up here in way of a response (my NOT having responded has resulted in these questions living rent free in my head for these past few weeks; I have to purge myself of this guilt and responsibility… just do it).

So, let me start (and unfortunately, finish) with grades. Grades don’t mean anything about you as a person. Your GPA is not a reflection of your personal worth. They won’t change what you’re doing in 20 years - unless you let them. Outside of teaching, your grades won’t matter much after you get your first job.

As a teacher, there are no rules about the best way to grade. How a teacher grades depends on his/her values, assumptions and educational philosophy (Erickson and Strommer, 1999). Grades provide the students with an avenue for complaining, and put a teacher in the position of having to defend them.  

Some questions that have scrolled across my forehead since I started to think about this question…

1. when we give students numerical grades instead of qualitative feedback for their performance, do we stifle their creativity?

2. when students know they are getting a grade, they study for the test; for what they think they need to know. How would their conceptual knowledge at the end differ if they knew in advance that they weren’t getting graded for it? Does a student think about what she is doing, (he/she… interchangeable terms)  or does the student think only about how well she is doing?

3. Does the assignment of grades foster a fact-orientated curriculum, since it’s easier to evaluate? Does grading relieve educators from having to rethink what and how they are teaching?

4. By the assignment of grades, whose interests/needs are being served?

And… how many times have you - as a teacher - heard this comment from a student,

“Do we have to know this?”